my
design, shrugged their shoulders, and said I had better try my hand at
almost any thing else. But I was sanguine that I could succeed, though
hundreds had failed before me. I felt that I possessed a peculiar
fitness for the work, and could give a peculiar charm to a newspaper
that would at once take it to the hearts and homes of the people.

A printer was called upon for an estimate, based upon a circulation of
three thousand copies, which was set down as a very moderate
expectation. He gave the whole cost of paper, composition, (type
setting,) and press-work, at $4000.

This fell a little below my own roughly-made estimate, and settled my
determinations. Two thousand copies, at two dollars a copy, which was
to be the subscription price, would pay all the expenses, and if the
number of subscribers rose to three thousand, of which there was not
the shadow of a doubt in my mind, I would have a clear profit of $2000
the first year. And should it go to four thousand, as was most
probable, my net income would be about $3400, for all increase would
simply be chargeable with cost of paper and press-work--or about sixty
cents on a subscriber. After the first year, of course there would be a
steady increase in the number of subscribers, which, if at the rate of
only a thousand a year, would give me in five years the handsome annual
income of $9000. I was rich in prospective! Nothing could now hold me
back. I ordered the printer to get ready his cases, and the paper-maker
to provide, by a certain time, the paper.

As the terms were to be in advance, or rather the whole year payable at
the expiration of the first quarter, I promised to begin paying cash
for all contracts at the end of the first quarter. Up to this period of
my life, I had gone on the strict principle of owing no man any thing,
and I was known in the community where I lived to be a strictly honest
and honourable man. Never having strained my credit, it was tight and
strong, and I had but to ask the three months' favour to get it without
a sign of reluctance.

Next I issued my prospectus for the "Literary Gazette and Weekly Reflex
of Art, Literature, and Science, a Newspaper devoted to, &c. &c.," and
scattered copies among my friends, expecting each to do his duty for me
like a man. They were also posted in every book-store, hotel, and
public place in the city. Said city, be it known, rejoiced in a
population of a hundred thousand souls, of which number I saw